On September 16th, 2016, MediaTek announced their first LTE smartphone win for the Sprint network in the US with the LG X Power model LS755. This design win on a major US carrier is significant in that it represents...

Two weeks after the US Commerce Department placed trade sanctions on ZTE over allegedly skirting US export controls laws (see US trade restrictions could be disastrous for ZTE’s smartphone business), a 3-month temporary lift of the sanction was put in place after “active” and “constructive” talks with the US government.

With all four major US carriers announcing an end to 2-year contracts and device subsidies, smartphone financing and sales will likely undergo a transformational change which will invariably move the US smartphone distribution model closer to that of the rest of the world and expose the real cost of devices to the end consumer.

As of January 2016, subscribers will no longer be able to get smartphones on a two year subsidised contract.
New subscribers will be offered AT&T’s Next plan, and will pay instalments on the full price of the smartphone...

The move by Samsung Display and LG Display to explore other avenues for AMOLED use comes at a time when the panels, delivering high contrast ratios and superior images, may have hit a wall in the smartphone space. Performance has been lower than expected for some flagship smartphone models in the high-end segment, where AMOLED panels are used in the largest volume, and the panel market has suffered as a result.

Although active-matrix organic light-emitting-diode (AMOLED) televisions headlined last month’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), shipments of these high-end panels will remain limited in the coming years, according to the IHS iSuppli OLED and Emerging Display Service at information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).Shipments of AMOLED TV panels are expected to climb to 1.7 million units in 2015, up from 1,600 in 2013. While the jump in shipments is large, the total number of AMOLED panels by that time remains negligible compared to the vast number of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels being shipped. The figure shown presents data on shipments of AMOLED TV display panels, not of AMOLED TVs themselves.

At a major press event this morning, South Korea’s LG Electronics unveiled its first large-sized active matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) television, an ultra-thin, ultra-light model with a 55-inch display. This will position LG to cash in on a fast-growing AMOLED market in the coming years.